Things come in three’s . . . sometimes slowly.

We’ve been in a bit of a holding pattern here at OTN for the last few months. Three major (and I mean MAJOR) changes were supposed to have taken place before the school year began.

First, there is a brand new office space waiting for us in the new Dick Clark Studios but the construction has been delayed. We were supposed to move in early to mid summer but that obviously didn’t happen. As of today, it looks like we might be able to move in by September 22nd. The ribbon cutting for the studios is September 29th!

There was also a plan to upgrade the automation and server for channel 2 and 2.1 HD this summer. That didn’t happen either mostly because I did not anticipate how long it would take to get a contract for the purchase of the new equipment through the university system. I had never done that before and a lot of people had to approve the contract so it took longer than hoped. That delay was my fault; I just did not know the process. Next time I will know better. All that said, the contract has been approved and the system should be in place in six to eight weeks.

The third leg of this shaky stool was the OTN website. I started working with web design teams here on campus to do a significant makeover to the site and again, had hoped it would be in place by now but that has been delayed too. The web team has just been absolutely smothered with work that had to take a higher priority that OTN. Understandable but still a little disappointed. Launch date for the revised website is still being determined.

So the big take away from this post should be that we are working hard at keeping OTN relevant, vibrant and a tremendous learning experience for the students. All of these changes take time to plan and research, effort to find the best solutions and as important, money. We’re not sitting still. We are committed to making OTN an institution you can be proud of. Sometimes it just doesn’t happen as fast as we would like.